Railroad flat cars are used to transport highway trailers from one place to another in what is referred to as intermodal Trailer-on-Flat-Car (TOFC) service. TOFC service competes with intermodal container service known as Container-on-Flat-Car (COFC), and with truck trailers driven on the highway. TOFC service has been in relative decline for some years due to a number of disadvantages.
First, for distances of less than about 500 miles (800 km), TOFC service is thought to be slower and less flexible than highway operation. Second, in terms of lading per rail car, TOFC tends to be less efficient than Container-on-Flat-Car (COFC) service, and tends also to be less efficient than double-stack COFC service in which containers are carried on top of each other. Third, TOFC (and COFC) terminals tend to require significant capital outlays. Fourth, TOFC loading tends to take a relatively long time to permit rail road cars to be shunted to the right tracks, for trailers to be unloaded from incoming cars, for other trailers to be loaded, and for the rail road cars to be shunted again to make up a new train consist. Fifth, shock and other dynamic loads imparted during shunting and train operation may tend to damage the lading. It would be advantageous to improve rail road car equipment to reduce or eliminate some of these disadvantages.
As highways have become more crowded, demand for a fast TOFC service has increased. Recently, there has been an effort to reduce the loading and unloading time in TOFC service, and an effort to increase the length of TOFC trains. There are two methods for loading highway trailers on flat cars. First, they can be side-loaded with an overhead crane or side-lifting fork-lift crane. Loading with overhead cranes, or with specialized fork-lift equipment tends to occur at large yards, and tends to be capital intensive.
The second method of loading highway trailers, or other wheeled vehicles, onto rail road cars having decks for carrying vehicles, is by end-loading. End-loading, or circus loading as it is called, has two main variations. First, a string of cars can be backed up to a permanently fixed loading dock, typically a concrete structure having a deck level with the deck of the rail cars. Alternatively, a movable ramp can be placed at one end of a string of rail car units. In either case, the vehicles are driven onto the rail road cars from one end. Each vehicle can be loaded in sequence by driving (in the case of highway trailers, by driving the trailers backward) along the decks of the rail road car units. The gaps between successive rail car units are spanned by bridge plates that permit vehicles to be driven from one rail car unit to the next. Although circus loading is common for a string of cars, end-loading can be used for individual rail car units, or multiple rail car units as may be convenient.
One way to reduce shunting time, and to run a more cost effective service, is to operate a dedicated unit train of TOFC cars whose cars are only rarely uncoupled. However, as the number of units in the train increases, circus loading becomes less attractive, since a greater proportion of loading time is spent running a towing rig back and forth along an empty string of cars. It is therefore advantageous to break the unit train in several places when loading and unloading. Although multiple fixed platforms have been used, each fixed platform requires a corresponding dedicated dead-end siding to which a separate portion of train can be shunted. It is not advantageous to require a large number of dedicated parallel sidings with a relatively large fixed investment in concrete platforms.
To avoid shunting to different tracks, as required if a plurality of fixed platforms is used, it is advantageous to break a unit train of TOFC rail road cars on a single siding, so that the train can be re-assembled without switching from one track to another. For example, using a 5000 or 6000 ft siding, a train having 60 rail car units in sections of 15 units made up of three coupled five-pack articulated cars, can be split at two places, namely fifteen units from each end, permitting the sequential loading of fifteen units per section to either side of each split. Once loaded, the gaps between the splits can be closed, without shunting cars from one siding to another. Use of a single siding is made possible by moving the ramps to the split location, rather than switching strings of cars to fixed platforms.
In using movable ramps for loading, the highway trailers are typically backed onto the railcars using a special rail yard truck, called a hostler truck. Railcars can be equipped with a collapsible highway trailer kingpin stand. When the highway trailer is in the right position, the hostler truck hooks onto the collapsible stand (or hitch) and pulls it forward, thereby lifting it to a deployed (i.e., raised) and locked position. The hostler truck is then used to push the trailer back to engage the kingpin of the hitch. The landing gear of the highway trailer is lowered, and, in addition, it is cranked downward firmly against the rail road car deck as a safety measure in the event of a hitch failure or the king pin of the trailer is sheared off. Once one trailer has been loaded, the towing rig, namely the hostler truck, drives back to the end of the string, another trailer is backed into place, and the process is repeated until all of the trailers have been loaded in the successive positions on the string of railcars. Unloading involves the same process, in reverse. In some circumstances circus loaded flat cars can be loaded with trucks, tractors, farm machinery, construction equipment or automobiles, in a similar manner, except that it is not always necessary to use a towing rig.
From time to time the train consist may be broken up, with various highway-trailer-carrying rail road cars being disconnected, and others being joined. Bridge plates have been the source of some difficulties at the rail car ends where adjacent railroad cars are connected, given the nomenclature “the coupler ends”. Traditionally, a pair of cars to be joined at a coupler would each be equipped with one bridge plate permanently mounted on a hinged connection on one side of the car, typically the left hand side. In this arrangement the axis of the hinge is horizontal and transverse to the longitudinal centerline of the rail car.
Conventionally, for loading and unloading operations, the bridge plate of each car at the respective coupled end is lowered, like a draw bridge, into a generally horizontal arrangement to mate with the adjoining car, each plate providing one side of the path so that the co-operative effect of the two plates is to provide a pair of tracks along which a vehicle can roll. When loading is complete, the bridge plates are pivoted about their hinges to a generally vertical, or raised, position, and locked in place so that they cannot fall back down accidentally.
Conventionally, bridge plates at the coupler ends are returned to the raised, or vertical, position before the train can move, to avoid the tendency to become jammed or damaged during travel. That is, as the train travels through a curve, the bridge plates would tend to break off if left in the spanning position between the coupler ends of two rail road cars. Since bridge plates carry multi-ton loads, they tend to have significant structure and weight. Consequently, the requirement to raise and lower the bridge plates into position is a time consuming manual task contributing to the relatively long time required for loading and unloading. Raising and lowering bridge plates may tend to expose rail-yard personnel to both accidents and repetitive strain injuries caused by lifting.
It would be advantageous to have (a) a bridge plate that can be moved to a storage, or stowed, position, with less lifting; (b) a bridge plate system that does not require the bridge plate to be moved by hand as often, such as by permitting the bridge plate to remain in place during train operation, rather than having to be lowered every time the train is loaded and unloaded, and raised again before the train can move.
Further, a rail road car may sometimes be an internal car, with its bridge plates extended to neighbouring cars, and at other times the rail road car may be an “end” car at which the unit train is either (a) split for loading and unloading; (b) coupled to the locomotive; or (c) coupled to another type of rail road car. In each case, the bridge plate at the split does not need to be in an extended “drive-over” position, and should be in a stowed position. Therefore it is advantageous to have a rail car with bridge plates that can remain in position during operation as an internal car in a unit train, and that can also be stowed as necessary when the car is placed in an end or split position.
Loading and unloading of highway trailers, or other vehicles in the manner described, above, can also be a relatively tedious and time consuming chore, particularly as the number of railroad cars in the string increases. Persons engaged in such activity may, after some time, perhaps late at night, tend to become less fastidious in their conduct. They may tend to become overconfident in their abilities, and may tend to try to back the highway trailers on to the rail cars rather more quickly than may be prudent. It has been suggested that speeds in the order of 20 km/h have been attempted. In the past, it has been difficult to form bridge plates that lie roughly flush with the deck. Due to their strength requirement, they tend to be about 2 inches thick or more. As a result there is often a significant bump at the bridge plate. Aggressive loading and unloading of the trailers may cause an undesirable impact at the bump, and loss of control of the load. In that regard, it would be advantageous to reduce the height or severity of the bump. It is also advantageous to employ side sills that have a portion, such as the side sill top chord, that extends above the height of the deck and acts as a curb bounding the trackway, or roadway, defined between the side sills. It is also helpful to have flared sill, or curb, ends that may tend to aid in urging highway trailers toward the center of the trackway along the rail cars.
It is sometimes desirable to keep the load in the highway trailer level, to avoid damage to the lading. Movable ramps tend to be relatively steep compared to road grades and fixed loading platforms. Some hostler trucks are able to raise the front end of the highway trailer while backing up the ramp, in an effort to maintain the trailer in a more nearly level orientation. This facilitates the use of the ramp loading method on a siding with relatively little permanent capital investment in loading facilities, and increasing the attractiveness of TOFC operation. However, when highway trailers are parked on the railcar deck, if the railcar deck adjacent to the trailer is too high, the hostler truck at the receiving end may have difficulty picking up the trailer. It is desirable to keep the deck adjacent to the hitch flush.
As noted above, when highway trailers are circus loaded on a string of railroad flat car units, the landing gear of each highway trailer is cranked down to bear firmly on the deck of the flat car in the event of a collapsible hitch or kingpin failure. The flat car units are not always located next to a convenient platform, and there is not always a generous amount of space available for loading or unloading crew to work on the deck around the trailers to perform the cranking operation. It is not necessarily prudent to stand on the deck of a flat car while highway trailers are being backed into place. It may also take some time to ascend the deck after the highway trailer has stopped moving, to edge along from the ladder to the landing gear, and then to lower (or raise) the landing gear, and then to descend from the car, particularly in bad weather, such as freezing rain.
It would be advantageous to have a ladder abreast of the position of the landing gear, (that is, at a location corresponding to the longitudinal location of the landing gear). Therefore it would be advantageous to have foot supports, and corresponding handholds, mounted to the body of the railcar abreast of the collapsible hitch and landing gear area to facilitate loading and unloading of the highway trailers.
It would also be advantageous to mount running boards longitudinally inboard of the hitch centerline, abreast of the landing gear position, i.e., the location of the landing gear feet of the highway trailers. It may be advantageous to mount the running boards slightly below the level of the main deck, as this may tend to allow a person operating the landing gear crank not to have to bend over as far.
It has been noted that the feet of collapsible hitches, such as are mounted to rail cars used in TOFC trailer operation, sometimes extend into the path of the trailer wheels, and may tend to damage the highway trailer truck tires. It would be advantageous to have a collapsible hitch, such as can be mounted above a center sill, that has a narrower footprint to stay clear of the tires.
Demand for transport by TOFC or by container may fluctuate over time. Therefore it would be advantageous to be able to convert a rail road car from one type of service to the other. To that end it would be advantageous to have a rail road car that has structure for either service, and that permits subsequent conversion as may be desired according to market conditions.
Reference is made herein to shipping containers and various sizes of highway trailers. Shipping containers come in International Standards Association (ISO) sizes, or domestic sizes. The ISO containers are 8′-0″ wide, 8′-6″ high, and come in a 20′-0″ length weighing up to 52,900 Lbs., or a 40′-0″ length weighing up to 67,200 Lbs., fully loaded. Domestic containers are 8′-6″ wide and 9′-6″ high. Their standard lengths are 45′, 48′, and 53′. All domestic containers have a maximum fully loaded weight of 67,200 Lbs. Some common sizes of highway trailers are, first the 28′ pup trailer weighing up to 40,000 Lbs., and the 45′ to 53′ trailer weighing up to 65,000 Lbs. for a two axle trailer and up to 90,000 Lbs. for a three axle trailer.